I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends

So, you're about to arrive in a largish city, you've never been before, and you've only made tentative living arrangements in a hostel based on some information a contact gave you and that which you've been able to glean off the internet. A good start, eh? Well, I think I would have been absolutely lost had it not been for a couple of absolute stars - Korban and "Elvis" (I swear, that's what his business card says!). Korban is a Uyghur man, 41, who seems to split his time between Urumqi and other cities, on various business. He speaks English, but only because he's picked it up over the years from talking to people as he travels - he doesn't read or write Chinese and I suspect he's illiterate where English is concerned too, but that doesn't matter. Over the course of the 2-day train ride we exchanged small pleasantries and once or twice he helped me explain something to the Chinese passengers (though his vocabulary is varied - he didn't know the word "farmer" but instead knew "agriculture", which helped a great deal, but was surprising). On Day 2, as we chatted, he offered to help me find the hostel - and me, not being quite that big an idiot, said yes please (or yesplzkthx, to you Lucy).

We rolled closer to Urumqi and started talking about family; he has a wife who is 14 years younger than he is, and 4 children ... it can't be too easy being away from them all the time. And we also compared the prices of various things - it seems to be a popular topic in China - though it took me a while to work out he was on about money, because he pronounced "pounds" like "porn" and I couldn't understand how our conversation had taken such a nosedive. (I had visions of him trying to show me the red light district, which seemed out of character for such a man!) ... The passengers next to us were all Chinese (virtually no spoken English) and they had obviously heard Korban was helping me find my hostel - the only problem was he didnt know exactly where it was. However, Elvis had an idea, and fortunately it coincided with his route home, so he offered to take me to a taxi, explain to the driver where to go, and help me that way. I must have stumbled on the jackpot of good fortune here!

(Aside slightly, Lucy you will be pleased to know the leopard went down a treat with one of Elvis' daughters, who was pawing agitatedly at some man's face - he kept winding her up - until I said she looked like a cat, and made the leopard hand to "bite" her ... she saw the funny side, as did the rest of the berth ^_^)

We stepped out of the train and into an oven. It was disgusting, but less so than Shanghai - at least we had a breeze here. Readers of the previous post will remember my "ordeal" and the fact it left me a little dehydrated, well I tell you, I was straight onto the water - I stepped off the train and made a beeline for the kiosk before coming back to Elvis and his family, who I was to follow out of the station. If I thought the platform was bad, I hadn't felt anything yet. Outside, the luxury of shade was removed, and I found myself quickly baking, worrying seriously about the prospect of heatstroke. [I later discovered via the BBC that there was a freakishly high temperature of 34C in Urumqi on Tuesday - THIRTY FOUR DEGREES, that's ridiculous, my melting point is somewhere around 25C!]

I followed Elvis and his family until we were met by a man who wanted to take us to his car - I thought, maybe this is how taxis work here, until Elvis introduced the man as his 弟弟 (didi, pronounced dee-dee, or younger brother), and said that he would take us to my hostel on the way back to their house. At this point I could hardly believe my good fortune - not only have I just met someone who will help me to my hostel, but they will do it personally, and when we arrived wouldn't even accept payment ... I have his business card though, so if I think of something nice to do in return I have that option. Babysitting, maybe. :P

By the time I stepped out of the car at the hostel I was about ready to die. I'd tried drinking water, it wasn't working so well, I'd tried pouring it over my head, that wasn't helping much either. Short of diving into an ice-bath there really didn't seem much hope for me if I stayed out in the sun. I was literally wilting, so imagine my delight as I entered the hostel and was met not just by shade but airconditioned shade at that. 冷气 (aircon, or lengqi, pronounced lung-chee) the two sweetest words in the Chinese language! The inside of the hostel was spacious, clean, and the reception friendly - by the time I got up the stairs I was bursting with all the water I had taken on, and had to run to the toilet before checking in even.

Check-in took only a few minutes, while I decided what room I wanted (based on size, bed numbers, en suite, and of course price), and the validity of my visa was brought into question (why is the visa validity period zero days?). [Oh and I completely forgot to mention, everyone had their passports checked by a Chinese policeman while on the train - he went from carriage to carriage, and had a little electronic book to enter details of travellers, maybe even check them against some database, who knows, all I can say is I'm glad I had my passport on my person when he asked, as I was wandering around, not in my carriage!] - finally I had a room though. 4 beds, ensuite shower and toilet (WESTERN), TV, fan, nice bed (a tad hard but so what), wireless internet, etc etc - 55Y per night, that's about £4.35 ... China really is excellent value for money.

I stank. I absolutely, positively ponged. After more than 2 days in the same clothes though, what do you expect? Even sitting on an airconditioned train, I still smelt bad. So what was the first thing I did when I got into my room? Yeah that's right, establish that there is Wifi to be used, and get online to chat with friends in the UK. I'm that bad. Of course I did take the time to clean myself up later, and then set out for a bite to eat - there was a place doing Kazakh food right below the hostel, which one of the receptionists recommended, so I headed down there and tucked into a big bowl of meat (hot) and noodles (er, cold?), with some bread on the side, and a drink too - total price, Y15 (about £1.20) ... feeling nice and full I came back upstairs and my stomach began to gurgle. I doubt it can have been the food I just ate, that would be far too fast-acting, and besides I'd been feeling up and down with my stomach recently ... still, the call couldn't go unanswered.

And, to keep a long story short, that little episode last night marked the start of my 吃坏肚子 or "poor stomach brought on by eating something bad" - this morning my insides are still somewhat loose, though I suppose I should try eating something and seeing how it stays (or not), and I have some small cramps but at least I'm not vomiting, and despite a slight inability to regulate my temperature (I keep fluctuating between shivery and a bit warm), I'm not feverish. With any luck this will pass in the next 24 hours and my stomach will be made of iron before I know it.

In the meantime, between bouts of traveller's diarrhoea, I think I might try and get out to the local supermarket (conveniently next door) and see what they have by way of small dry goods to eat and maybe some medicine too (Western, not Chinese).